Archives: Topolo Menus

When most of us utter “Jalisco,” we’re likely thinking of Tequila, the eponymous distillate from a town just outside Guadalajara, a distillate that for over a century-and-half has put Mexico on the map of world-renowned beverages.

Or we’re thinking about the gorgeous beaches of Puerto Vallarta or the birthplace of Mariachi music or the beautiful colonial capital of Guadalajara, which wrestles with Monterrey for the position as Mexico’s second largest.

Unsurprisingly, when I think of Jalisco, it’s food that’s top of mind—tortas ahogadas, the bacon-infused carne en su jugo, the red chile-braised goat birria, the pipianes, the custardy jericalla. I reflect on the multiple waves of immigration from Jalisco to Los Angeles and how the cooks who landed there helped define our American understanding of Mexican food by tempting us with crispy-fried tacos, tostadas, bright salsas and the like.

And my mind wanders past the singularity of elegantly made artisanal Tequila to the raicillas of the western Jalsico, rustically crafted from a host of different agaves, or the super-interesting variety of agave distillates from the northern part of the state that are capturing the attention of aficionados.

Yes, Jalisco may be Tequila country, but it’s certainly a whole lot more.

Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula is legendary—and for more than its cerulean waters, white sand beaches and luxury hotels. The culture of the spectacular Mayan ruins of Chichén Itzá, Uxmal and Cobá rose to brilliant heights over ten centuries ago, having mastered dramatic architecture, richly developed astronomy (including the most precise calendar of the time), advanced mathematics and a comprehensive writing system.

All that’s frozen in time, but not the rich cuisine of this storied land. Ancient ingredients like nixtamalized corn, colorful beans, abundant seafood and game, singular chiles, pumpkinseeds and native spices are still indispensible in today’s kitchen.

Yucatan’s markets celebrate three complex spice pastes shot through with garlic and sour orange juice. The “blanco” one flavors beef and escabeche, the red one brings the famous cochinita pibil to life with achiote, and the mysteriously black one adds burnt-chile complexity to relleno negro and, for this menu, aguachile.

It’s a singular, earthy cuisine born out of smoky, wood-fired village kitchens, a cuisine with ancient echos and elemental satisfaction.

If you’ve heard anything about Oaxaca, it’s likely something about the famous moles or the award-winning (and omnipresent) folk art or the spectacular surf competitions in Puerto Escondido.

You may not know that, because of its rugged topography, Oaxaca has Mexico’s greatest biodiversity (cloud forests, tropical dry forests, coast lands) with more wild mushrooms, orchids and ferns than any other state!  It is host to Mexico’s greatest ethnic diversity (16 indigenous languages) which means more culinary diversity, too. Nearly every day, Oaxaca City hosts calendas (parades for weddings, baptisms, first communions),  punctuated by huge festivals like summer’s Guelaguetza, fall’s Día de Muertos, Christmastime’s Noche de Rábanos and Easter’s Semana Santa. Each festival brings to life a different set of delectable traditions.

Oaxaca is a stretch of earth that has been inhabited for 11,000 years, its precolonial Zapotec capital of Monte Albán rising to its greatest heights by 700 CE.

This evening we invite you to join us on a tour of this rich land, tasting flavors from different cultures, different terrains, even different stretches of time.

As the daily glow of sunshine fades, we festoon the darkness with twinkling lights. Bold flavor can light things up, too, adding even more brightness to our year-end celebrations.

That’s why, for our final menu of 2025, we are featuring moles, those complex, flavor-packed, uniquely Mexican sauces that spell festivity whenever they’re offered.

Mexico leads the world in having mastered a brilliant fusion of flavors. Some moles—I’m thinking here mostly of Puebla’s mole poblano and Oaxaca’s mole negro—weave together nearly three dozen ingredients, each carefully toasted or roasted, blended to silkiness, then cooked together in a time-honored progression that yields a flavor that’s uniquely greater than the sum of its parts. Achieving this alchemy requires well learned skill and several days of preparation.

While most of those dark moles combine indigenous ingredients with ones that immigrated from Europe and Southeast Asia, yellow and green moles have been crafted for centuries from the purely native bounty. No less special, these inimitable sauces draw attention to even more ancient tradition.

We’re excited to share with you celebratory dishes we’ve created for the season, preparations that we hope delight and surprise you while offering the warm embrace of flavors Mexico’s cooks have perfected over centuries.

My first visit through Mexico’s famous, rocky, generously yielding wine region, the Valle de Guadalupe, was 45 years ago.  Deann and I were making our way the thousand miles from Tijuana to San Jose del Cabo in an old VW bus, and Santo Tomás winery—the oldest in the region—was on our itinerary.  Having spent time in Napa, I wasn’t very impressed.

Twenty years later, we returned to meet a handful of new transplants.  They were youthful, energetic winemakers who’d settled there with a unified mission to prove that the Valle had more potential than the area’s bulk wines reflected.

With the aid of a small-but-mighty wine school, that little handful has exploded into nearly 200 wineries.  As uniquely Valle bed & breakfasts opened to accommodate curious travelers, so did restaurants.  The chefs’ one-of-a-kind, indoor-outdoor style of live-fire cooking drew wide-spread praise.

Today, a trip to Mexico’s largest wine region offers more than I ever could have imagined on that first trip.  Every visitor has the opportunity to do wine tastings at internationally awarded wineries and to dine at Michelin-starred restaurants (there are four of them, plus many more that are Michelin-recommended).  It’s one of the wine world’s best-kept secrets, but not for long.

Everyone in Mexico recognizes Tijuana as one of the most vibrant taco scenes in the country—varied, excited, deeply rooted in tradition and super-delicious.  

 

But let’s face it: old reputations die hard, no matter how mistaken they are.  Tijuana is a good example, a city whose reputation was tarnished by Vietnam-era revelers, now grown from it’s small town beginnings to Mexico’s super-modern, third largest city.

 

All you have to do is experience tacos at Fito’s across from the downtown market—succulent beef birria with show-stopping broth—and you know why Tijuana tacos are a thing.  Or stand in line at Albondigas de Camaron Originales, inhaling the wonderous aroma as they sear shrimp in oily salsa macha.  Or hang out at El Tigre Toño (yes, that translates as Tony the Tiger) as the guys offer tastes of dozens of perfectly seasoned taco fillings, each one like a grandma’s welcoming hug.

 

You get the idea:  Tijuana is an amazing taco town.

The first time I stepped into La Merced Market—now over 40 years ago—I was filled with wonder. Six foot mounds of poblano chiles and purple-streaked garlic, giant-sized displays of ancho chiles cascading from one wide wooden bin down to another, aromatic chorizo and barbacoa wafting from intermittent stalls that proffered tacos, gorditas, huaraches and tlacoyos. The meat stalls offered nose-to-tail butchery more thoroughly than I’d ever seen. And the chicharrón prensado—think of it as the equivalent of our salt pork or pork hock used to flavor dishes—loomed like impenetrable, sweet-smelling walls that blocked sight of the just-plucked chickens and fresh fish just behind. Mercado de La Merced, so sprawling that it engulfs a major subway stop and sixteenth-century church, is still, for me, one of the most wondrous places on earth.

At this time of year, it’s no surprise that Cancun, Cabo and Puerto Vallarta lure northerners with their warmth, beautiful sand beaches and azure waters.  While good food is abundant in all those seaside destinations, let us introduce you to the taste of some deliciously different coastal spots. From the steamy tropics of Chiapas where plantains are covered in the famous local cheese and simojovel chile to Tabasco’s mango groves where the world’s best chocolate grows alongside street vendor favorites, we are going to take you on an expedition of regional ingredients and cuisine. Strap in, kick off your shoes (metaphorically, of course), and get ready for Spring Break at Topolobampo.

When Deann and I moved back from Mexico in the mid-‘80s, one of our goals was to introduce folks to both the diversity of Mexican cuisine and the splendor of Mexico City’s restaurants.  Nothing with the elegance and sophistication of San Angel Inn or Hacienda de Los Morales—the two top spots at that time— existed here, and I dreamed of creating a restaurant we could grow to match them.

Though I was still quite an inexperienced chef when we opened Topolo in 1989, my first menus explored many of Mexico’s classic seafood dishes—the ones I’d written about in my first cookbook—through a fine-dining lens.  And in the starters of those opening menus, I always included Caesar salad.  Yes, it was invented in Tijuana, but I included it to offer comfort for those for whom the rest of the menu might be a challenge.

Times have certainly changed, and Topolo has gone through many iterations and garnered many awards, including restaurant of the year from the James Beard Foundation and 13 years of Michelin stars. Topolo chef de cuisine Meagan O’Connor has poured over three decades of changing menus and culled these gems—seen anew through 2025 eyes—to represent our greatest milestones. We’ve even included a nod to Topolo’s most unusual iteration—during COVID—when we packed up the dinner’s mise en place and armed our guests will a how-to video for finishing each course at home.

Maybe I went too far with the title for this menu. Oaxacans don’t traditionally do a single holiday feast of the seven moles.  They leave that seven-dish extravaganza to the Italian-Americans and their fishy festivity.

But, still, serving mole at any time does spell festivity and Oaxaca does festivity better than anywhere else in Mexico.  So, since my family and I have spent over three decades celebrating the holidays in Oaxaca, I thought it was perfect to offer a menu at this special time of year that features Oaxaca’s famous seven moles—some in traditional presentations, some in ways that will be new to you.

We’re taking you beyond Oaxaca City’s renowned cuisine to the special preparations of towns—large and small— throughout the state.   From Puerto Escondido and their herby, light-green fish mole to the richly spiced black mole of the central valleys, from the Northern Sierra’s red mole studded with tender pozole to a coloradito I learned from a Zapotec cook in Juchitán in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.  Come taste the unparalleled diversity Oaxaca offers us!